Planning is key to sustainability

Sustainability starts not with funding but with effective planning and management. Planning ahead is vital to the ongoing success of your voluntary and community organisation. It focuses your efforts, makes best use of resources, helps you to understand costs, the type or amount of funding required and achieves your mission and goals.

Often known as strategic or business planning, it can seem quite daunting, especially for smaller organisations who may not have sufficient resources. This section will help to explain effective planning and management, whatever the size of your organisation, and guide you towards long-term sustainability.

Throughout the section there are useful resources available - case studies, weblinks to further sources of information and various guides to download.